


Victor Angers The Russian Mob?!? Uh Oh!!! No Competition Necessary, Let's All Be Friends!

by Cy_kun



Series: Gotham!!! On Ice [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics), Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: "yurio has massive crushes on yuuri and victor" headcanon, Ambiguous Ages, Consistent Tenses? Never Met Her, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, I feel I must once again stress: SLOW. UPDATES, Like Glacier Slow, M/M, Other, WARNING: SLOW UPDATES, Yuri centric, basically their ages are whatever you want them to be, because I hate aging people up too much, because I'm not keeping track, because every batman story needs more jon, but everyone basically still looks the way they do in canon, maybe future Jon Kent/Colin Wilkes?, might sprinkle some rebirth in too, mostly pre-52/pre-rebirth Batman canon, out of my cold dead hands, we'll see, you can pry the
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2020-02-26 16:44:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18721012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cy_kun/pseuds/Cy_kun
Summary: Yuri certainly never expected to almost stumble upon what had to be one of the best kept secrets in the world.(Okay, maybe not best kept, since he managed to figure it out with two names and a bunch of halfhearted internet searches, but still.)Tim Drake-Wayne and Jason Todd.Batman and Robin.Maybe.Or, the one where Victor pisses off the Russian mob, Yuuri despairs, Yurio angsts, Damian pines, and Tim and Jason may just find themselves with a whole new group of friends. Also, Bruce probably needs to set a certain figure skater straight with regards to certain superhero identities.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So yeap, here's that sequel I promised in the comments on part 1. It's...gonna be multichapter, because that always works out so well for me. It's also going to take a loooooong time for me to finish, because I update very slowly. So if you're the kind of person who likes to wait for the full fic before reading, hit that subscribe button and go about your business, because you'll be waiting a while. But I will finish it. I always finish my multichapters.

It started as a lark; a way for Yuri to pass the time between training for Nationals, competing in Nationals, training for Worlds, and competing in Worlds. He never dedicated much time to it; an hour here and there, twenty minutes during a bus ride, maybe longer on the rare nights he couldn't sleep and Beka (his only friend who was actually awake after 10PM on any kind of consistent basis) wasn't around to distract him. If anyone had asked (and they wouldn't because he kept his personal shit _private_ unlike some shitty old men he could name) he would have told them he never expected to actually succeed. All he had to go on were two names that might not even be real, physical descriptions, and the usual intangibles that only ever made themselves known when meeting someone in person. He certainly never expected to almost stumble upon what had to be one of the best kept secrets in the world.

(Okay, maybe not _best_ kept, since he managed to figure it out with two names and a bunch of halfhearted internet searches, but still.)

Tim Drake-Wayne and Jason Todd.

Batman and Robin.

Maybe.

Because there was that one reporter who did a series of articles about Tim maybe being someone called Red Robin a while back, but since Tim had been shot and had his leg in a cast while he was supposed to be flying around as this Red Robin person Yuri ignored them. A bit more searching uncovered a whole slew of Bat-people who were supposedly flying around Gotham (including a Catwoman, which was pretty much all Yuri talked about for like a solid month), and yeah Red Robin's name showed up there too, but no one seemed to be able to agree on any of them actually existing except for Batman and Robin (and Catwoman). Which was fine with Yuri. Those two were hard enough to figure out, and if it wasn't for him finding a video clip of Tim giving a TED Talk about low-budget video game design he probably never would have. But he did, and when Tim had opened the floor for a Q&A and a big guy with the exact same white streak in his hair that Robin had asked him a question the mic didn't quite pick up but made Tim flustered enough to break out into a blush and say “Jason, get off the microphone”, it had _yanked_ Yuri right out of the half-doze he'd been slipping into.

“ _Jason...”_

“ _Jason...”_

“ _Goddammit, Jason...”_

It would never hold up to anyone if he tried to explain, but Yuri _knew_.

The skinny nerd talking passionately about paid internships over work-study programs was Batman. Which meant Jason had to be Robin. It took a few more hours, but a newly energized Yuri searched for anyone named Jason who might have even the smallest connection between someone named Tim Drake, Tim Wayne, Tim Drake-Wayne, or anyone who shared those last names. When he finally found himself looking at a picture of Jason from an old internet article, he knew he'd found his guy. He also knew two other things he hadn't been expecting.

One, Jason Todd was even hotter when you could see his eyes.

(And fuck if Yuri didn't need _another_ crush on an older guy who wasn't available. At least he wasn't interested in Tim, so the chances of this unattainable crush ending the way his last two did, with both of them falling stupidly in love with each other and _never fucking shutting up about it_ was pretty fucking slim. But _still_.)

Two, Jason Todd had been dead for years.

Which, _obviously_ , not true. But it was still weird for Yuri to be looking at a picture of a younger Jason in some private school uniform smiling with these giant dimples while the headline above proclaimed his death. He wondered what Jason was like back then. If whatever had “killed” him was the reason why he became Robin or if he maybe faked his own death to keep anyone from figuring out he was _already_ Robin. And what the hell were the odds of the same man adopting both Batman _and_ Robin?

Either Bruce Wayne was the least observant person in the world, or he was secretly funding the whole thing.

(Judging by the articles he pulled up about Bruce Wayne, it was 50/50 either way.)

So yeah, Yuri had figured out who Batman and Robin were in his free time while his stupid brain wouldn't shut up enough for him to get to sleep. He felt a vicious spike of white hot satisfaction. When the fuck had Katsudon's anxiety ever done something like _this_.

(He completely ignored the fact that Katsudon's anxiety had, technically, landed him the shitty old man. Fuck that. That didn't count. Those two idiots were obviously soulmates anyway. They would have found each other sooner or later and even if Yuri had managed to somehow turn Katsudon into the greatest skater the world had ever seen _and_ win his heart just by yelling at him in a bathroom stall, he still would have met Victor at some point and that would have been it.

(Also, what the _fuck_ had 15 year old Yuri been thinking? Now that he was older and infinitely more mature and emotionally stable, Yuri promised himself that, the next time he fell in love with someone, he'd just ask them out like a fucking normal person instead of yelling at them to give up their dreams or constantly telling them he was going to destroy them.)

Thing is, he never really expected to figure out who they were, so he never really gave any thought to what he'd _do_ once he found out. It wasn't like he wanted to talk to them or anything. (Especially not Jason, whose thighs might actually be thicker than Katsudon's in the off season and Yuri hated that he was self-aware enough to know how much of a kink that was for him.) And he sure as hell wasn't going to blackmail them, even if they were rich as fuck. Yuri had never accepted a single ruble from anyone unless he earned it himself, and he wasn't about to start now. So Yuri's kind of at a loss. In the end, he decides to take his victory lap in the form of 3AM diet-breaking Pirozhki and call it a night.

Life went on. And before he knew it, it was another off-season.

Yuri hated the off-season. Hated the entire idea of it, really. It was like when Yakov would be out of town for a day or two and everyone at the rink besides Yuri and Katsudon would slack off, except it lasted for _months_. Yuri hated not training. He hated stagnating. He hated that his stupid body needed to take breaks and he couldn't go all out, all day, every day and have that translate into him being the _best_. He especially hated how stupid fucking puberty kept fucking his body up and every fucking year it seemed like he had to relearn every goddamn thing he knew while everyone else spent the off-season getting fat and lazy and came back better than ever. That first year after his senior debut was the worst wake up call he'd ever had. Some might have called it karmic justice after what he'd said to Katsudon in the bathroom at Sochi (Victor had. To his face. And _fuck_ had that hurt) but when Yuri had to spend his entire season flubbing jumps _and_ watching Katsudon and the old man flaunting themselves every fucking chance they got it was like his own personal year of hell. The part he hated the most, though, was how _supportive_ they'd all been. Even Victor, after his karma comment, had stayed after practice and helped Yuri learn how to deal with his new body. (And it wasn't even that big of a difference, just an inch or two of height, slightly longer legs, and a bit more muscle, but it fucked _everything_ up) Katsudon too. No matter how much Yuri yelled and cursed and told them off and blamed them for _his_ problems they never left him alone. They helped him, and spent time with him, and fucking held him when everything got to be too much and he couldn't stop from fucking _crying_ like a goddamn child.

How the _fuck_ was he supposed to get rid of these fucking _feelings_ when they kept doing shit like that?

It was almost bearable, when he was exhausted and every iota of his being was focused on getting on at least one podium (and how was that for a fall from grace? The Ice Tiger of Russia, who won his very first senior Grand Prix by breaking Victor fucking Nikiforov's world record, struggling to even make it to the fucking podium). When his brain and body would literally shut down at night and he didn't have to think. But in the off-season? All he could think about was how their arms felt wrapped around him. If he was feeling particularly masochistic, he wondered if they held him the way they held each other. Or if there was some level of tenderness that he'd never get to experience no matter how many times he broke down.

Fun times.

It had gotten a bit better as the years went on. Not that Yuri ever really got over them, but the pain hadn't gotten any worse, and he'd adapted. He didn't cut them out of his life, they'd never let that happen and Yuri knew it wouldn't help anything anyway, but he did make an effort to expand his circle, a bit. He still spent most of his non-Yuuri-and-Victor time with Beka, Potya, or Grandpa, but he forced himself to talk to more of his competition too. (Which was strangely easier now that they _were_ competition and not so far beneath him he could have skated over their corpses and not even noticed) Sueng-Gil was probably his favorite. He never talked much, so they could just sit next to each other in a cafe or whatever and read or play on their travel consoles (Switch for Yuri, 3DS for Sueng-Gil) for hours and people would leave them alone because they were together. Phichit was his least favorite, easily, aside from Loser Style of course. He had absolutely no concept of personal space and after years of dealing with the Yuri's Angels the sight of a cell phone camera pointed right at Yuri's face made him twitchy. Surprisingly Minami wasn't too bad, once he got over being the biggest Yuuri Katsuki fanboy in the world and chilled the fuck out. (Also, he managed to get Yuri some official Yuuri Katsuki Fanclub merch without actually having to publicly join, which Yuri appreciated more than he would ever say even if he couldn't look Minami in the eye without blushing for like a month) It helped that they were both carrying a torch for the same oblivious idiot, and Minami, unlike Yuri, never seemed to care that it would be forever unrequited. He'd asked him, once, when they were both visiting Yu-topia at the same time and everyone else had already gone to bed and Yuri had filched them the last of the sake, if it ever hurt seeing Yuuri with Victor. Minami was slightly drunk and, if he ever had any defenses to questions like that, they were completely down around Yuri by that point and he'd answered immediately and honestly.

“Nope! I think I'll probably always love Yuuri, but that means I want him to be happy. He's happy with Victor, so I'm happy too.”

Yuri couldn't accept that anyone outside of one of those stupid shonen mangas Yuri definitely wasn't addicted to could actually feel that way. “So? What if he was even happier with you? You don't even care about that? And what about you? Are you just gonna love him forever and die alone with a million stupid poodles named Yuuri?”

Even drunk, Minami had given him a look of such painful _understanding_ that Yuri had almost thrown up. (Or maybe that was just the sake. Fuck off, just because he couldn't hold his alcohol didn't make him any less Russian) “I won't say it _never_ hurts,” Minami had said slowly, “but I don't think either of us will end up alone. It gets easier, and when you _really_ love someone the first thing you have to do is be honest with yourself. Would I love it if I could be with Yuuri? Of course. But I'm honest enough to know that, even if Yuuri could give _me_ what I need, I don't think I could give _him_ what _he_ needs. Not the way Victor does. Victor gave the world the Yuuri I always saw. All I would have been able to do was keep him for myself.”

Yuri thought a lot about what Minami had said over the following months. It was all he could think about, and he was almost glad his body had decided to fuck with him again so he had an excuse for why he kept fucking up besides what what was going on inside his head. Because every time he thought about Minami's words they were always followed by a crystal clear recollection of everything he'd said to Yuuri in Sochi.

In the end, Minami was right.

Neither one of them could have given Yuuri what he needed. And Victor...

Well.

Victor had never needed or wanted Yuri the way he did Yuuri.

So yeah, Yuri never really intended to contact Tim or Jason ever again, even after he figured out who they were. But the thing was, he'd spent so _much_ time thinking about them and wondering about them and it was hard to turn that off. Especially during this particular off season. Grandpa was sick, and while it wasn't life threatening, Yuri wouldn't have left his side for a second even if there was a tiger petting convention happening right across the street. With Katsudon and the old man back in Hasetsu, and Beka spending most of the off season in Almaty with his family, Yuri was fresh out of people to talk to. And while he knew his friends would make time for him if he called, his phone felt like a cinder block in his hands whenever he tried. That tiny voice in the back of his head wouldn't shut up with it's constant refrain of _you're just bothering them everyone's happy without you they don't need you not the way you need them no one wants to talk to you no one wants you in their life you can't even win a gold meal anymore when Grandpa dies you'll be all alone and everyone will forget you_ over and over until Yuri threw his phone at the wall and buried himself under all the pillows and cat plushes on his bed.

It didn't help. He still had all these _feelings_ building up in him and no way to let them out. It felt like his insides were coated with burning tar that kept bubbling and boiling and roasting him from the inside out.

Later on, if someone were to ask him when it started, he wouldn't be able to say, exactly. All he knew is that, at some point, he started composing long rambling text conversations in his head. Everything he was feeling, everything he wished he could say out loud, everything he hated about himself, everything he couldn't keep inside for another second, all of it was gone over in painstaking detail in his mind. He imagined himself pushing send on an imaginary phone, letting those texts out into the world. He imagined someone reading them, their eyes scanning every vitriol-laced word, their face shadowy, the only part of them visible would be pale, tight lips lit up by the glow from their phone as they typed up a response. There was no set schedule when he would do this, and the texts were always different even if the issues he vented about stayed the same. The only constant were the words he began his imaginary conversation with.

_Hey! Batman!_

Yuri wrote responses, too. Which sounded all kinds of stupid if he'd actually tried to explain it to anyone, but fuck if it didn't help. Maybe it was because he'd met Batman, and even if they'd shared a few moments of kinship over sneering at the annoying fanboys, he was still different from Yuri. So Yuri tried to keep his responses in character, and sometimes he just ended up yelling at himself inside his own head, but other times trying to think, _really_ think, about how Batman would respond to him actually gave him a different perspective on his issues. And by the time Grandpa recovered and the idiots in Japan remembered he existed and Beka took a whole week to come visit Yuri, things had sort of evened out. Of course, “even” for Yuri these days still meant he was stressed about his skating, worried that next time Grandpa might not get better, and nursing this stupid heartache every time Katsudon and the old man so much as smiled at each other (or even worse, _him_ ). But it's a status quo he'd been dealing with for years, so, if nothing else, it was manageable.

He never quite fell out of the habit of “texting” Batman, though.

Which was why, when Victor fucked up more than usual and got them all in trouble with the Russian mob, he knew exactly who to call to save their asses.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

There were days when Tim Drake-Wayne absolutely loved his day job. Days when it was stimulating, where he could go toe to toe with the most powerful people in the world and _win_ without throwing a single punch, where he could lay down on the decadent leather couch in his and Jason's apartment at the end of a long day and know at least one tiny part the world was slightly better off for his efforts.

Then there were days when his biggest accomplishment was breaking the record for how many pencils he could stick into the ceiling of his office. Which was 66.

He opened a new pack of pencils, aimed, and threw.

67.

_Maybe I should start going for some kind of pattern?_

68.

_A bat would look pretty cool._

69.

_Heh. Nice._

70.

_Or maybe—_

His intercom flared to life.

“ _Mr Wayne, you have a call on line two._ ”

Tim jerked in surprise. Which would have been the end of it, normally, but he'd been balancing his chair on two of its eight wheels to make his pencil-sticking a little more fun, and he just barely caught himself on the edge of his massive desk as his chair slid out from under him and he went crashing down. His relief lasted for all of two seconds, before about half of the 70 pencils stuck directly above him came loose and bounced off his head.

Not for the first time (far from the first time, _very_ far from the first time) Tim hated the fact that Bruce had security cameras in his office.

“Okay,” he said quietly, knowing the cams would pick it up along with his unfortunate blush, “what do I have to do to make sure Jason and Damian never see this footage?”

His phone didn't buzz, but that was okay. Babs would get back to him at some point, and he'd been nice to her recently. Surely she wouldn't demand anything too terrible.

“ _Mr Wayne?_ ”

Tim flinched.

_Oh. Right. Work._

“Thanks Denise,” he said, his voice surprisingly cool and calm even though he was still clinging to his desk. And, also, still Tim. “I'll take it now.”

He didn't bother asking who it was.

Tim gathered himself up, straightened out his suit, and picked up his phone.

“Tim Pencil—Drake—Wayne! Tim Wayne.” Tim closed his eyes. He could feel the Earth cringing and looking away in secondhand embarrassment. “How can I help you?”

_At least today can't possibly get any worse._

“Uh. Is this Batman?”

Tim dropped the phone.

One of these days he was really going to learn not to say that.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri Katsuki does not like Russia.

As far as sentiments went, he thought that one was pretty straight forward and hard to misinterpret. Russia was cold. Unbearably cold. Yuuri had thought he had a pretty high tolerance for extreme temperature, what with living in Hasetsu during the winter and spending most of his life in an ice rink, but Russia was _cold_. It was like, when the Earth was being created and weather was being doled out Russia showed up late still a little drunk from the night before and the only things left were _Russia_ and _Antarctica_. (And he wasn't even sure Russia got the better of the two, at least Antarctica had penguins) It didn't help that no one in Russia spoke English or Japanese, or that, despite being a nightmarish hellscape of frozen tundra, not one single shop seemed to sell a jacket that could stop Yuuri's near constant shivering every time he stepped outside a building. He'd never had to take _off_ layers when he walked into an ice rink because he immediately started sweating until he moved to Russia. Of course, the few Russians that weren't part of Yakov's stable who did speak something that sounded almost like the broken English Yuuri had been able to manage when he first moved to Detroit (okay, he's being generous here, surely, even young, pre-staying-up-all-night-practicing-English-with-Phichit-while-binging-Kitchen-Nightmares Yuuri had never been this bad) were less than helpful. They all seemed to think he was an adorable foreigner wrapped up in his cute layers and his precious three scarves. And their advice, when they stopped pinching his cheeks and stuffing him with various hot bun dishes (okay so maybe they weren't all bad) was to fortify himself against the cold with a stiff shot (or three) of good Russian vodka.

This was not advice Yuuri would be taking.

Aside from the fact that, if Yuuri had to take a shot every time he was cold, he'd very quickly die of alcohol poisoning, it was well documented that Yuuri and alcohol do not mix. He would deal with the hellish cold a thousand times over before he'd ever consider warming himself with the alcohol poisoning in a bottle the insane Russians tried to pass off as spirits. Yuuri's hard and fast rule since Sochi was no more than two light beers, one shot, or three reasonably sized cups of sake per 24 hour period. This was the only way to keep him from humiliating himself (again) and bringing shame upon his entire ancestral lineage (again). Besides, he'd already won a husband with his drunken escapades, so there was no sense in pushing his luck.

(His success with this rule was...debatable. But he always maintained that it was a very good guideline regardless of how many times he slipped up and he _dared_ anyone to resist as many times as he had when _they_ had Victor Nikiforov sloppy drunk and hanging off of them with that damn _pout_ and begging them to have “just one drink with me Yuuuuuuri~~~!”)

Speaking of husbands, one would think that, living with a man who was not only independently wealthy, but was also hailed as a hero by his countrymen and fluently spoke the language _and_ refused to leave Yuuri's side unless he absolutely had to would make his adjustment to his new home somewhat easier.

One would be wrong.

That's not to say Victor wasn't a lifesaver, or that Yuuri didn't love him with an intensity that only seemed to increase with every passing second. Yuuri was well aware his life would be a trashcan dumped into a toilet bowl and set on fire if it wasn't for Victor (and Yuri, and Yakov, and his parents, and...well, a lot of people, actually. But mostly Victor). And, since Victor was Victor and utterly incapable of _not_ being Victor, Yuuri's cheeks spent a good deal of time doing their part to warm him from the intensity of their blushing. So there was that.

But here's the thing.

_Victor was Victor and utterly incapable of not being Victor._

Which was great, right up until it wasn't.

Case in point: When he drunkenly punched the son of a Russian mob boss for hitting on Yuuri, and ended up with a _hit_ put out on _them_.

As you do.

Considering, Yuuri thought he was handling it pretty well.

“Yuuri? Are you okay in there?”

“I'm fine, Victor.”

“Okay...” An audible sigh, then, “It's just, you've been in the bathroom for three hours, now.”

“I know.”

“And the shower has been running the whole time.”

“I know.”

“Have you been in the shower for three hours, Yuuri?”

“Yes.”

A long pause. “Did you take your clothes off first?”

“Nope.”

“Oh. Is that...crying, I hear?”

“Yep.”

“Have you been crying in the shower for three hours, Yuuri?”

“It seems that way.”

“Oh.” Another long pause. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Yuuri tilted his head up into the spray (which hadn't even begun to cool, score one for insanely expensive hotel rooms and the in-the-doghouse husbands who spring for them) and let it wash away the latest build up of tears and snot from his face. He was very glad his glasses were...somewhere. There were a lot of reflective surfaces in this shower, and one of the few saving graces of his present situation was that he couldn't, currently, see how much of a mess he was.

The other was that _Victor_ couldn't see.

Because, while right now there was a mean, vindictive part of Yuuri that wanted Victor to see _exactly_ what his actions had caused, he was still rational enough to know that, if they somehow survived the next week or so without actually being killed and dismembered and thrown in the Neva Bay, he'd actually, literally, die of humiliation if he let the only person who had ever been attracted to him (half-drunk and obviously blind mafia kids don't count) see him all puffy and red faced and covered in tears and mucus.

“Can...can you call Yurio and make sure he's okay?”

Because it wasn't even close to a secret how close Yuri was to them, and aside from the ice rink, Yuri's apartment (where he lived _alone_ , because Yuuri needed something else to worry about) was probably the first place anyone looking for Victor and Yuuri would go.

He would never forgive himself (or Victor) if anything happened to Yuri because of this.

“I just talked to him ten minutes ago. He was perfectly fine.” Another pause. “Or at least as fine as Yurio ever is, I suppose.”

Yuuri took a deep, shaky breath. “Please?”

He wasn't even sure the weak, breathy plea had carried over the sound of the shower and the closed door, but if he opened his mouth again all that would come out would be a big, ugly sob and Yuuri's throat (and chest, and head, and _soul_ ) already hurt too much to be able to handle that right now.

“All right,” Victor said. He sounded resigned and defeated.

Yuuri said nothing else, and eventually Victor left.

Twenty minutes later the hot water abruptly cut out, and Yuuri's shower ended with a shriek.

He made a token effort to clean himself up in the sink (though why freezing cold sink water was somehow okay when freezing cold shower water wasn't he couldn't say) but he'd reached the “I don't care how I look anymore I need fifteen bowls of Katsudon” point of his depression spiral and gave up after the cold water just made his nose even redder.

Victor could deal. It wasn't like he could just divorce Yuuri there in the (obscenely expensive) hotel room while they were hiding from the mob. If nothing else, there would always be that little piece of paper tying Victor to him like a chain holding a poor, captive native to the walls of the ship ferrying them across the sea to a life of slavery.

With that happy thought in mind, Yuuri picked his glasses up off the floor, put them on, and walked naked out of the bathroom. He stopped in the middle of their bedroom (the hotel suite had multiple rooms, naturally) and frowned.

Victor was nowhere to be seen.

“Victor...?” Yuuri called.

There was no answer.

A chill that had nothing to do with exhausted water heaters settled over his heart.

_Oh no, they found us. They have Victor. They tortured him. They raped him. They killed him. No, they raped him then killed him. Or killed him then raped him!_

“Victor no!”

Yuuri grabbed the nearest heavy object and ran out into the lounge.

“Get away from my husband!” he yelled, brandishing his weapon.

Victor, standing ten feet away completely unharmed, dropped his phone in surprise. “Yuuri!”

“Victor! You're okay!” He looked around wildly. “Where are they? Did they already rape you?”

Victor blinked, then adopted what Yuuri, when he was in his right mind (or what passed for it), called his “Yuuri is upset and crazy, but for some reason that may never be explained by science I still love him so I am trying to figure out how to humor him without sending him into a black hole of panic and despair from which no light or sanity will ever escape” expression.

“There's no one here but us, my love. No one is raping anyone.”

“Are you sure?”

Victor gave Yuuri's naked body a very long once over. “I'm sure.”

(See, that's how outside observers familiar with the intricacies of the Domestic Victurri would know there was a Serious Happening taking place. Victor very manfully refrained from following up with something like “but unless you get some clothes on soon I can't make any promises about what might happen in the next few minutes”. Phichit had once spent a whole week on vacation with Victor and Yuuri meticulously recording every detail of their daily life together, and was the one to actually point out the “Yuuri is upset and crazy etc etc” look to Yuuri for the first time. Since then, the part of Yuuri that wasn't horrifically embarrassed to realize every single private moment between him and his husband on that particular vacation had been witnessed and documented by his best friend couldn't _stop_ noticing all the sweet little Victor things Victor did for Yuuri that he'd never picked up on before. This was the only reason he didn't completely stop speaking to Phichit after they came home that year.)

Yuuri nearly collapsed with relief, though his anxiety wouldn't quite let him drop his weapon or stop searching every dark corner of the room (of which there were none, the lighting was very well done) for hidden assailants.

“Yuuri?”

Yuuri must have made some noise of acknowledgment, because after a moment Victor continued.

“Is that water bottle for me?”

“What water bottle?”

“That one.”

Victor pointed to Yuuri's weapon.

Which, _oh...that is a water bottle._

A half filled one at that.

“Um...”

Yuuri felt his cheeks begin to warm.

So of course that was when the hotel room door was violently kicked open.

Yuuri screamed.

Victor screamed.

Yurio stomped through the open door, snarling.

“All right, losers! Stop your cowering and get in here and thank me! I just solved all your...stupid...”

Yurio stared, slack-jawed, at Yuuri.

Time began to slow.

Yurio's eyes, which had been fixed on Yuuri's damp chest, began to move lower at the speed of a geologic age.

From nearby, a long, drawn out “Nooooooooo!” could be heard slowly breaking through the silence of years.

Yurio's eyes reached Yuuri's pre-season paunch.

A shadow passed across Yuuri's vision.

Then, all of a sudden, the normal flow of time came crashing back in.

Along with Victor.

Yuuri went down hard, Victor having thrown himself at his husband with little thought to how thin the carpeting actually was. Yuuri's tall, muscley husband landed right on top of his lower abdomen, driving the air out of his lungs and, by some miracle, not actually crushing his balls to a fine powered dust.

“No Yurio! Don't look! Keep yourself pure! Don't look at my naked Yuuri!”

Distantly, Yuuri heard a phantom skating announcer.

“ _And Katsuki is down and probably out, folks. I don't know if he can recover from this one. The hopes and dreams of an entire nation may have just been crushed here tonight at the Grand Prix Final.”_

“I wasn't looking at anything old man! Why would I wanna see your fat husband naked? That's gross. You're gross. I hate you both you're so fucking disgusting!”

“Yuuri isn't gross! Yuuri is beautiful. You'd be lucky to see him naked!”

“ _Katsuki is conscious but still not moving. You would have to assume the humiliation and embarrassment is setting in right now. How could anyone come through something like this unscathed?”_

“Agh! Don't get off him! I thought you didn't want me to see it?”

“That was before you called my Yuuri gross. Look at that! Is _that_ gross?”

“YES!”

“ _Yep. I am sorry to say it looks like tonight we may have seen the end of Katsuki Yuuri.”_

“Vic..tor...?”

“Yes, my Yuuri? Are you okay? Did you hit your head?”

“Stop _straddling_ him!”

“Victor...”

“Yes? I'm listening. Do you want me to get Makka?”

“Your stupid dog is with Yakov, you idiot.”

“Please bury me with Vicchan.”

“Nooo! You have to be buried with me! Are you really that upset with me you want to be torn apart in the afterlife?”

“Oh my god, this is disgusting, I'm fucking leaving. _Don't_ have sex while I'm gone, I'll be back soon and _I can't walk in on that again!_ ”

Yuuri vaguely registered the sound of a door slamming.

“Yuuri? Yuuri, please answer me. Are you still mad at me?”

Yuuri's eye began to twitch. “Did you just show my penis to Yurio?”

Victor was silent for a long moment. “Maybe?”

“Then yes. Yes, I'm still mad at you.”

Victor wailed. Yuuri closed his eyes.

“ _Today may go down as the blackest day in the history of figure skating.”_

 

* * *

 

 

Yuri glared at the hotel room door. The door stared back placidly. Yuri hated it.

He just had no idea if he hated it because it hadn't kept him from seeing naked Katsudon, or because Katsudon might _still_ be naked behind the door and Yuri couldn't see through it.

_Beka was right. I need so much therapy._

Yuri flinched as a different door from somewhere else in the stupidly expensive hotel Victor had decided to hide out in ( _seriously? Has that stupid old man ever heard of being inconspicuous?_ ). It _probably_ wasn't someone from the mob who had followed Yuri and was now about to catch him outside Katsudon and the Old Man's hotel room, shove him inside, tie them up, and cut off all their fingers and toes before boiling them alive in acid, but Yuri wasn't about to take any chances.

He'd rather suffer through an entire lifetime of wet dreams about Stupid Victor straddling Naked Katsudon than get his toes chopped off.

In a concession to stealth, Yuri kicked the door open gently.

“You losers better not be fucking in here!” He covered his eyes, but left enough room between his fingers so he could still sort of see through.

_So much fucking therapy._

“We're decent,” Katsudon said.

Yuri let out a sigh and let his hands drop. “Good.” He sounded so convincing he almost believed himself.

Katsudon and Victor were sitting at opposite ends of the couch. Yuri almost didn't notice at first, because it was pretty much a rule that, if the PDA Kings of Figure Skating weren't joined at the hip, then one of them wasn't in the room. He saw Yuuri with no Victor and assumed the old man was in the bathroom, or something. When he did notice, something like dread began to curl inside him.

“Are you...fighting?”

“No,” Katsudon said evenly.

“ _Yes_ ,” the Old Man wailed despondently.

“ _No._ ” Katsudon's expression hardened but he didn't so much as glance at Victor. No, he stared right at Yuri. “We are not fighting. I'm just not speaking to Victor because everything bad that happens in the world is his fault.”

His eyes seemed to be daring _Yuri_ to disagree with him.

Yuri had no plans to do any such thing. And apparently Katsudon's steely glare was powerful enough to effect Victor even while pointedly _not_ looking at him, because half a second later Victor wilted and nodded morosely.

“Yuuri is right. It's all my fault.”

He went limp and slid halfway down the couch.

_I should have let the mob find me. I'd rather cut my own damn toes off than be in the middle of this._

“I hate you both so much.”

“See what you did, Victor? Yurio hates us now.” He let the words hang in the air for a moment before going in for the kill. “And it's all _your fault_.”

The Old Man wailed again.

Yuri couldn't believe how savage Katsudon was being. Yuri had always thought him and Victor were all puppies and rainbows and embarrassingly public kiss-and-cuddle fests. He didn't even think they knew _how_ to fight; not real fights, anyway. Just “Victor hasn't spent all day running his fingers through my hair since I got it cut do you think he hates it?” or “Yuuri only smiled at me 300 times today what did I do wrong?” Victor and Yuuri bullshit.

He had no idea how to handle this, beyond a very small part of his brain waving its arms and shouting “now's your chance!” He ruthlessly shut that shit _down_.

Yuri Plisetsky was no homewrecker.

“Was there something you wanted, Yuri?” Yuuri said calmly, completely ignoring his melting husband.

Yuri scowled at the sound of his real name.

What? So the stupid nickname wasn't the worst fucking thing in the world, what's the big fucking deal? It wasn't like it mattered what he was called, really. And it wasn't like he actually _liked_ it. It wasn't like there was this huge fucking line drawn down the middle of his life that separated Yuri from Yurio. It wasn't like his life had changed dramatically since he first heard that dumb name, or that everything good, _really_ good, the kind of good that changes a person for the better, that had ever happened in his life happened to _Yurio_ and not _Yuri_. And it definitely wasn't like he loved hearing the name spoken with Katsudon's faint Japanese accent or Victor's lilting, sing-song tones.

Yuri just didn't like how pissy Katsudon was being, that's all.

“Shut up!” He took his phone out of his pocket and threw it at Katsudon. It hit him in the chest with a loud _thump_ and bounced into his lap.

“Ow! Yurio, what—”

“Open it and read the text conversation at the top, idiot. I'm too pissed off to talk to you right now.”

“What did I do?”

“You didn't do anything! Shut up! Read the fucking texts!”

To Yuri's mild surprise, Katsudon did what he asked. After a few minutes he frowned down at Yuri's phone.

“Are...are you mad that Minami still uses the old doge meme?”

“What? No! Not that conversation! The one above it!”

“Oh.” Katsudon tapped the phone a few times. Yuri knew he had the right conversation this time when Yuuri gasped and nearly dropped the phone. “Yurio! What did you do?”

Yuri crossed his arms and smirked. “I told you before. I solved your fucking problem.”

 

* * *

 

 

_Two days earlier_

 

“What the fuck was that? Did you drop your phone?”

There was silence from Yuri's phone for so long he had to check to make sure it hadn't hung up. It hadn't, and Yuri glared.

“Are you ignoring me? Hey, _Batman_! Answer me!”

A beat, then, “ _Ah, who is this?_ ”

“Yuri Plisetsky.”

“ _Shit_. _I mean—wow, an international skating superstar calling me, how...how cool. Um, is there something I can do for you Mr Plisetsky? Did you maybe want Wayne Tech to sponsor you, because I can transfer you to the—”_

“What the hell are you talking about? Wayne Tech Russia already sponsors me. Are you trying to pretend you're not Batman?”

“ _We already sponsor you_?”

Yuri rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I wore your stupid skates all last season. Now shut up and listen, I need your help.”

“ _...were the skates not satisfactory?_ ”

Yuri growled. “Shut up about the fucking skates! I need you to beat up the Russian mob for me.”

_This isn't how any of my imaginary conversations went._

“ _What? That..._ ” Yuri heard Tim take a deep breath. _“Mr Plisetsky...I don't know why you're calling my office about this, but—”_

“Because you're Batman. Look, I get it, okay? You need to protect your secret identity and all that shit. But I'm not stupid. I _know_ who you are. You and Jason Todd.” Yuri paused, then thought, _fuck it why not_ and continued, “Bruce Wayne, too.”

The last thing Yuri expected to hear was a snort.

“ _You have some...very interesting ideas, Mr Plisetsky. I can assure you, though, you're incorrect. I'm_ not _Batman._ ”

Yuri pushed down the sudden disappointment that rose up in his chest. Tim was a lot more useful when he was just in Yuri's head.

_I don't have time for this shit._

“Fine. You know what? Fuck off then. I'll just call Robin up and tell him Katsud— _Katsuki_ is in trouble and needs his help. He seems like the kind of loser Piggy fan that would come running to help his stupid ass.”

“ _No! Don't do that. I have no idea what you're talking about. But don't call Jason, whoever that is, and tell him anything like that_.”

“I never said Jason was Robin.”

There was a long pause, followed by, “ _Fuck_...”

Yuri grinned.

“ _Wait! No, you did say Jason's name. Earlier. You said you knew about Jason Todd and Bruce Wayne, and everyone knows Robin is younger than Batman so, if anything, Jason would be Robin and_ Bruce _would be Batm—”_

Tim was cut of by a sound Yuri recognized from years of Katsudon wrestling a phone away from the old man when he started oversharing about their personal life. (Which was a fucking _joke._ Put a few shots into him and Katsudon would draw a to-scale replica of the old man's dick with permanent marker on a table in any bar in the world. Not that Yuri ever took advantage of that. Not more than a few times anyway.) Sure enough, after a minute of scuffling noised punctuated by snippets of Tim saying things like “oh thank god fix this please” and “I'm so sorry Bruce”, the next voice to speak to Yuri was definitely not Tim.

“ _Hi! Bruce Wayne here. Sorry to interrupt your conversation like this but I was walking by Tim's office and overheard him and I just had to ask...is this really Yuri Plitenskey the figure skater_?”

“Plisetsky,” Yuri growled.

“ _Oh._ ” Wayne said, nonplussed. “ _Is that Polish_?”

“What the hell? It's Russian you dumbass!”

“ _Russian, huh? That's amazing. Anyway, my son's a huge fan, and I was wondering if I could buy an autograph or maybe a meet and greet with you? Do you do charity auctions? He'd love some old skates, or maybe a few costumes or something. His birthday's coming up and I really can't afford to forget again this year.”_

He finished with a loud, booming laugh; the same kind Yuri had heard a million times from stupid sponsors who had no idea what the fuck they were talking about, but knew he had to laugh along with them because they were giving him money. It took every bit of self-control he had not to chuck his phone across the room.

_I can't believe I thought this idiot knew Tim was Batman._

Yuri wanted to scream at him to put Tim back on the phone, but he'd dealt with enough rich dumbasses to know that wouldn't get him anywhere. As much as he hated it, he'd have to keep calm and be _nice_ to the loser until he got bored and went back to his stocks or whatever the hell he did all day.

Yuri took a deep breath.

“Listen you fuck—”

_That's not being nice, Yurio! s_ houted the tiny Katsudon that lived in his head.

“—ing good business man. I'll, uh, give your kid an autograph, or something. Put Tim Drake back on the phone and we can work out the details.”

_Fuck you, Katsudon. I can do nice._

“ _Great! You really saved my bacon, Mr Plets...can I call you Yuri?_ ”

“What?”

“ _Fantastic! You really saved my bacon, Yuri. You would not believe how upset Damian gets when I forget things like that._ ” Another one of those booming, mostly vacant laughs. This one was tinted with a hint of _can you believe how unreasonable that boy is sometimes?_ Yuri had to actually bite his lip to keep from telling this asshole off.

_Maybe I'll actually send the kid some autographed skates or something. He deserves it for having to deal with this asshole as a dad._

“ _Anyway_ ,” the asshole was saying, “ _I've got a better idea. Why don't you call me back on my personal number and we can work out the details. Don't wanna tie up Timmy's work phone too long. Just 'cause he's the boss doesn't mean he should be taking personal calls on company time.”_

Another laugh.

“What? No! I don't want your fucking—”

“ _Good! I'll text you the number and we can pick this up in a minute. Can't wait to hear from you Yuri!”_

The piece of shit hung up.

“You fucking asshole!”

His phone chimed with a text from an unfamiliar number. It was a number, followed by a fucking backwards (: basic bitch ass smiley face. Even _Victor_ used kaomojis, and he was like 50.

“How the hell do you even know my number?” Yuri yelled at no one. Potya lifted his head from where he was sleeping, gave Yuri a glare, then went back to sleep. Yuri grimaced and slightly lowered the volume of his next outburst. “And if you have it why don't _you_ just fucking call _me_?”

His phone chimed again.

**Unknown number:** _Because Bruce is hoping you won't call._

Yuri almost dropped his phone.

“What the fuck?”

**Unknown number:** _Language._

“What the _fuck_?!”

Yuri threw his phone across the room. It chimed three more times when it landed, vibrating across his hardwood floor. Which made the whole thing even more fucked up, because he always had vibration turned off.

He ran around his apartment, pulling all his curtains shut and taping over the camera on his laptop, then shutting it for good measure. When he was as sure as he could be that no one could see him, he warily inched his way over to his phone. He meant to smash it into tiny pieces then flush those pieces down the toilet, but when it chimed and buzzed again his curiosity got the better of him.

“If you explode in my hand, I'm gonna hunt you down and cut your face off,” he said to whoever was spying on him through his phone.

_Unless it's a ghost. If it's haunted I'm fucking gone like the old man's hairline._

He picked it up and opened his messages.

**Unknown number:** _You're gonna break your phone if you throw it like that._

**Unknown number:** _Aren't you a little old for temper tantrums?_

**Unknown number:** _I'm getting bored._

**Unknown number:** _If you don't call you're gonna wake up one night with Batman standing over you *looming*. Just warning you._

Yuri tilted his head. That didn't sound so bad. It got Batman out here and he didn't have to talk to that idiot billionaire ever again.

His phone chimed again.

**Unknown number:** _I know that look. Trust me, Batman showing up in the middle of the night is *not* something you want._

Yuri scowled as he typed a reply.

**Me:** _Get the fuck out of my phone!_

**Unknown number:** _No. I live here now._

“How the fuck can someone be more annoying than Victor?” Yuri muttered to himself.

**Unknown number:** _I haven't talked to Victor yet. But I resent that. I'm only trying to help._

_Oh great, it can hear me._

“Fuck.” He went and got a piece of tape and covered up both his cameras, front and back. “Can you hear me now?”

**Unknown number:** _Rude._

**Unknown number:** _And yes._

“But you can't see me?”

**Unknown number:** _No. Not even I can see through tape with an iPhone X camera._

**Unknown number:** _Yet._

**Unknown number:** _And really? An iPhone X? I didn't take you for the “more money than sense” type._

Yuri flushed. “Victor bought it for me...”

**Unknown number:** _Ahh. Makes sense. I should have guessed._

**Unknown number:** _Considering half your memory is taken up with pictures of him and Yuuri Katsuki, I mean._

“You don't know what the hell you're talking about! I don't take pictures of those losers! And if I did it's just because I'm studying them so I can destroy them when the season starts back up.”

**Unknown number:** _Oh Yuri. Having a crush isn't the worst thing in the world._

Yuri squeezed his phone so hard the screen nearly cracked. This time, though, there was an undercurrent of fear beneath the anger.

Was it really that easy to see through him?

_No. And even if it was, I don't care if everyone else knows as long as Katsudon and the old man never figure it out. And they haven't. Because Victor might be able to pretend he had no idea, but there's no way Yuuri wouldn't give it away the first fucking time we were in the same room together._

Still, he was more than a little freaked out that someone he'd never met figured it out just by hacking into his phone and looking at a few pictures.

Unless...

“Um. You're not a ghost, are you?”

**Unknown number:** _Not in the traditional sense._

“What the hell does that mean?”

**Unknown number:** _If you wanted to be poetic you could say I slip through firewalls and security systems like a ghost, but I promise I'm all human._

“Oh. So you're, what, a hacker?”

**Unknown number:** _Something like that._

**Oracle:** _You can call me Oracle._

“What the fuck? How did you change your contact information like that?”

**Oracle:** _I'm *spooky* good._

“Oh fuck you. That was terrible.”

Yuri couldn't stop his lips from pulling into a tiny smirk though.

He was doubly glad he decided to tape up his cameras.

He also quickly changed Oracle's contact info from “Oracle” to “Phonetergeist”. Because it was his fucking phone and he had a habit of giving all his contacts names-he-would-be-mortified-if-anyone-found-out-about-but-made-him-snicker.

(He still had no idea how he went an entire month a few years ago with no one looking over his shoulder and noticing that Victor, Yuuri, and Beka were “It Happened A Million Times in a Dream”, “If I Had to Pick Just One”, and “Eagle Two” respectively.)

**Phonetergeist:** _Seriously?_

**Phonetergeist:** _At least my pun made sense_

**Oracle:** _There. I fixed it._

Yuri scowled and tried to change it back, but every time he hit the edit contact button he was kicked back to his home screen.

“You suck.”

**Oracle:** _That's no way to speak to a lady_

“Yeah?” Yuri asked skeptically. “You know if I had an American dollar for every time some guy on the internet told me they were a girl I wouldn't need sponsors, right? You're probably some fifty year old guy with a beer gut living in a warehouse with a poster of a vocaloid on the wall.”

**Oracle:** _You're being very rude to someone who could send really embarrassing texts to all your friends from your phone._

“You won't, though.”

**Oracle:** _You sound very confident about that._

“You still want me to call Bruce Wayne, and I still don't want to. If you start texting my friends I'll just destroy the phone and never talk to you again.” There was a long “silence” from Oracle, and Yuri's lips pulled into a smirk. “I might like bad puns and have stupid crushes, but I know how to deal with people who want something from me. Besides, it's not like this'd be the first time someone stole my phone and sent people creepy texts. Why do you think Victor bought that thousand dollar monstrosity in the first place?”

**Oracle:** _Oh Yuri, I could do so much worse to you than sending a few embarrassing texts._

**Oracle _:_** _But you're right. I do want you to call Bruce. So I won't threaten you. All I'll do is ask nicely._

“Ugh, _why_ do you ever care? He's just some rich asshole.” Yuri crossed his arms. “All I wanna do is talk to Batman.”

Oracle's reply was suspiciously long in coming.

**Oracle:** _Call Bruce._

“Is he Batman's boss or something?”

**Oracle:** _Something like that._

Yuri scowled. “I knew it,” he grumbled. “Why can't rich people have normal hobbies?”

**Oracle:** _The world may never know._

**Oracle:** _Look, just give him a call and I promise you'll be able to make your case for getting help with the mob straight to Batman himself._

“I thought you said he didn't want me to call?”

**Oracle:** _I said he's hoping you won't. Bruce has a lot on his plate right now and the last thing he wants is to have to deal with someone knowing who Batman is._

**Oracle:** _But Bruce sometimes forgets that he is a force of obsession and control and if you don't call he won't be able to let it go, hence you waking up with Batman looming over you._

“That loser is gonna send Batman after me if I don't call him?”

**Oracle:** _Yes. And if he does that, you can kiss any chance of him helping you with your mafia problem goodbye._

Yuri scowled yet again. “Why the hell didn't you just say that in the first place? Fuck, fine. I'll call the rich idiot. But if Batman and Robin don't help and we all end up dead I'm dragging those assholes out of the afterlife and we're all gonna haunt you for the rest of your fucking life.”

**Oracle:** _Duly noted._

“Damn right it is.”

There was no response text.

Fine, whatever, Yuri could tell when someone didn't want to talk to him anymore. Besides, he had more important shit to do anyway than talk with someone who hacked his fucking phone and had a lame ass fake name like Oracle.

“Boreacle, more like.” He glanced down at his phone. Still nothing. “Psh. Whatever.”

He dredged up the tattered remains of his Yakov mandated “play nice for the rich sponsors Yura or you'll be doing spins until you puke” training and dialed the number Bruce Wayne had texted him. It was picked up after two rings.

“ _Yuri Plisetsky?_ ”

Yuri paused. The voice on the other end sounded like Bruce Wayne, but it was way calmer than he'd been expecting. “Uh, yeah. Is this...Bruce Wayne?”

“ _We're on a secure line,_ ” possibly-Wayne said, completely ignoring Yuri's question. “ _Why are you trying to contact Batman?_ ”

Yuri blinked.

Well. That was refreshingly direct. Maybe this Bruce Wayne guy (if that's who this was) wasn't that much of an asshole after all?

“Victor pissed off the Russian mob and now they want to kill all of us,” Yuri said. He could do direct with the best of them.

“ _And how is that Batman's problem_?”

Okay, never mind, he was an asshole.

“Because I'm making it his fucking problem!” Yuri bit his lip, hard, to keep himself from saying anything more. _Fuck, just pretend this is that douchebag Adidas rep who always tries to get you to take your shoes off. You didn't yell at that shithead, you can be calm now._ “I mean, because I need his help. Isn't that what Batman does? Help people?”

“ _So do the police.”_

Yuri snorted. “Yeah, I'll just go call the Russian police on the Russian mob. While I'm waiting for them to show up I'll cut off my own feet and throw myself into the bay to save them some trouble.”

There was a long period of silence, followed by a noise that almost sounded like a sigh. “ _And can I ask what, exactly, three figure skaters did to anger the mafia?_ ”

“Hey! Don't lump me and Katsudon in with that shitty old man. This is all his fault.”

“ _I assume you're talking about Victor Nikiforov?_ ”

“Do you know any other shitty old men?”

There was a distant noise, like someone in the background on Bruce Wayne's side of the call was talking _very_ quickly, but almost as soon as it started there was a crackle, and then silence. Yuri checked, but the call hadn't been dropped, so he guessed that Wayne either muted it or covered it up with his hand. A minute later he was back.

“ _What did Victor Nikiforov do?_ ”

“Is this on speaker?”

“ _Not anymore. What did he do?_ ”

Yuri rolled his eyes. _Fuck it._ “He punched the son of the city boss in the face for hitting on Katsudon.”

Another long silence. “ _I'm assuming 'Katsudon' refers to a person, and not an actual pork cutlet bowl?_ ”

“Uh, yeah.” Yuri blinked. Bruce Wayne was actually the first person to ever ask, which was _weird._ “Yuuri Katsuki. That's who Katsudon is, I mean.”

“ _All right. And was anyone else involved in this...altercation?”_

“No, but everyone around here knows who we are. It's not like Katsudon and the Old Man can just hide out for a few weeks or go on vacation until it blows over or anything. Hits on famous people aren't cheap—or, uh, that's what I was told, anyway.” By Beka, who was suspiciously evasive every time Yuri tried to ask him _how_ he knew so much about mafia hits, but it wasn't like Beka ever lied, so Yuri believed him. “If they don't find them, they'll just come after me, or Yakov, or Mila, or Georgi, or anyone at the rink.”

And, _fuck_ , did Yuri hate admitting that out loud. It sounded way too much like he was scared of some mafia fucks when...okay, fine, that's exactly what he was. Look, it wasn't like Yuri was _allergic_ to self-reflection or some shit like that. He knew all too well that he was all fucked up from losing his parents so young and he tended to push people away so he'd never have to deal with losing _them_ too. That was, like, basic psychology bullshit. He read about that in fucking _school_. None of that changed the fact that he'd started letting people in over the past few years and now there was a good chance he could lose way too many of them because some drunk asshole at a stupid party couldn't keep his hands to himself. Fuck, Katsudon and Victor shouldn't have even _been_ there. It was just a dumb let's-go-out-with-the-sponsors-and-get-drunk-because-that's-how-shit-gets-done-in-Russia thing that Yuri had done a dozen times since turning legal. The only reason he'd even invited them was because he was hoping Katsudon would have a few too many shots and maybe drag Yuri into another dance off or grind on him a bit before dragging Victor into the nearest bathroom. (Yuri was weak, okay? Fuck off.) Fuck, he didn't even have to beg or yell or _anything_. Even though Katsudon _hates_ clubs and bars he'd just smiled when Yuri hinted that he didn't feel comfortable going out on his own and asked what time they should be ready. So, really, this was probably all Yuri's fault in the first place.

Which meant it was his responsibility to fix it.

“I don't want that to happen. And I can't keep them all safe by myself” he said, hardening his voice and covering himself in the Ice Tiger of Russia like it was a fucking set of plate mail. “But _Batman_ can. So if he doesn't want his secret identity plastered all over every website and blog from TMZ to RT, tell him to get his ass out here and _save my fucking friends_.”

_So much for being nice..._

Bruce Wayne didn't say anything for the longest time. Long enough for Yuri to get nervous. Despite his bravado, he knew Wayne could just hang up on him and Batman could block his number. If they did that, he was fucked. They all were. And despite his threats part of him knew if they _did_ come it would be because they couldn't ignore a cry for help. He was betting _hard_ on the morality of people he didn't really know.

“ _All right_.” It was still Wayne, at least Yuri was 80% sure, but his voice was different. Harder; deeper; _more_ somehow. Even over six thousand miles and through a crappy Russian mobile network it made Yuri shiver. “ _We'll be there in a few days. I assume your friends can lay low until then?_ ”

Yuri blinked.

_I did it...?_

“Ye—” His voice caught on the thirty thousand different emotions welling up inside of him—not the least of which were _holy fuck this worked_ and _I'm not going to get everyone I love killed—_ and he pulled the phone away to hide that he needed to clear his throat. “Yeah. They can probably hide out in a hotel for a while.”

“ _Don't book one under their real name_.”

“We won't.”

“ _And don't let anyone recognizable check you in_.”

“I _won't_. I'm not stupid.”

Another silence, this one pointed in a way that raised Yuri's hackles.

“ _We'll be in touch._ ”

Wayne hung up.

Two days later, Yuri got a text.

**Batman:** _We're on our way._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you updates would be slow


	3. Chapter 3

Okay, so.

Maybe spending so much time at his apartment when the Russian mob was after two people the media and the figure skating world at large liked to refer to as his “parents” (which, _gag_ ) wasn't the smartest thing Yuri ever did.

In his defense, he _really_ liked his apartment. It was the first place he'd ever lived in that didn't have a cent of his grandpa's money tied up in it, and it was also the first place he'd ever picked out by himself. (And decorated, but that was a fucking state secret; he'd _just_ gotten people to stop calling him a fairy, so fuck off and so fucking what if Yuri liked interior decorating?) He loved the floor plan, the entertainment set up, the small home gym, fuck, he even loved the curtains. He knew every inch of his apartment like it was an extension of his soul.

Which was the only reason why, when he came home from spending the day at Yuuri and Victor's hotel room, he realized something was off even before he tried to switch on the lights and nothing happened. He didn't bother flicking the switch again, Yuri had seen enough horror movies to know that shit never worked. But before he could turn and haul ass, the _thing_ in the corner shifted.

It was dark, of course, but even with the blackout curtains drawn and the only light coming from under the recently closed front door of his apartment, the thing seemed to be made of shadows. It was somehow darker than the absence of light, and when it moved it imprinted itself on the tapestry of blurry, indistinct lines that made up Yuri's darkened apartment like a bas relief on the face of reality.

Yuri's heart stopped. Every conspiracy theory he'd ever read about secret Soviet monster experiments came rushing back to the front of his mind, and all he could think was _the mob has them now and sent one after me._ He closed his eyes and waited for death.

It took him a few minutes to realize he wasn't, actually, being killed.

When he finally screwed up enough courage to open his eyes again, the thing was still exactly where it had been before. Yuri might have thought someone broke in and left him a statue made of shadows as some kind of fucked up supernatural warning if it weren't for the way he could _feel_ the thing looking at him, studying him, silently flaying open his soul and rifling through the very essence of what made up the meat sack known as Yuri Plisetsky.

With the sudden knowledge that he was still alive came the return of his instincts.

“I have skates!” he blurted.

He'd meant to follow it up with something like “and I'll cut your face off with them if you take one step closer” but the way it came out sounded more like he was offering them as tribute to the dark god before him, and the follow up died before it could pass his lips. Threat or supplication, the god made no reaction. Finally, when it seemed like the silence and tension would grow so thick Yuri would suffocate to death on it, the thing spoke in a strangely familiar voice.

“Yuri Plisetsky.”

_It knows my name!_

Every old story his grandpa ever told about demons came rushing back, and a pretty common theme was that, if they knew your true name, they could cast spells on you.

“That's not my name,” Yuri said quickly.

_Yurio, Yurio, Yurio. My name is Yurio. Everyone fucking calls me Yurio so that's my fucking name now you can't cast a spell on me if you don't use the name everyone uses._

“Yuri—”

“That's not my fucking name don't cast a spell on me!”

Yuri cringed, partly because he was expecting dark magic to be flung at him at any second and partly because he'd actually said that out loud and if anyone ever heard about this he'd have to run away to Siberia for the rest of his life.

Silence fell once again, and the thing in the corner tilted its shadowy head.

Then, finally, there came what for all the world sounded like an exasperated sigh.

“Turn the lights back on.”

Before Yuri could move—not that he _would_ have, in the confines of his own mind at least he could admit he was too scared for anything as complex as movement—two things happened.

One, the lights in his apartment suddenly came on. They weren't very bright, and the curtains and the dark red of the walls diffused what harshness they had, but they did their job of taking away the creature's shadows. The thing that stood in the corner was man-shaped—if something that big and hulking could be compared to any kind of mere _human—_ and completely covered in what looked like black armor except for a small, flesh colored area around the mouth and an odd little yellow symbol on its chest. Yuri frowned. That symbol looked almost like a...

The second thing was that his phone began vibrating very violently in his pocket.

Yuri took his phone out without thinking—he'd lived in fear of getting a text saying Katsudon or the old man had been kidnapped or found in little pieces spread over Yakov's ice rink for days, checking every message he got was an obsession at this point—and stared in disbelief at the message he saw.

**Oracle:** _Told you you wouldn't want to wake up with him looming over you._

“What the...?” Yuri glanced up at the thing in the corner. “Who are you?”

The thing wasted no time in answering, in perfect Russian no less.

“I'm Batman.”

Yuri's fight or flight instincts—which made up a disproportionate part of his psyche—stalled. Which meant Yuri stalled. Which meant even the thin, ratty, barely-there filter that floated around and sometimes managed to catch in the space between his mouth and his brain couldn't stop him from saying the first thing that popped into his head.

“You don't look like Tim.”

Batman said nothing, which gave Yuri a chance to take in the costume he was wearing a bit more and...

Okay. This one definitely looks more like a bat than Tim's. They both still had the hood mask thing, though, so Yuri wasn't _completely_ wrong. Much better than Victor, who didn't even know Batman _existed_.

“So...” Yuri took a step back, getting ready to stealthily pull open his door and run. (What? He'd invited Tim and Jason and now there was some strange guy in his house. Running was a perfectly reasonable reaction.) “Did you kill Tim and Jason for stealing your identity?”

Batman still said nothing.

_Maybe Batman's really a robot and he just crashed or something._

If that was true, this would make it a perfect time to run. Yuri's hand closed around the doorknob.

“Don't,” said Batman, but it was too late. Yuri was already pulling the door open and running—

Right into a solid chest.

“Hey!” The guy belonging to the chest said. He was tall and broad, wearing a suit that Yuri's Victor-trained eye calculated was probably only half as expensive as it looked. His dull blue eyes narrowed when he saw Yuri. “Oh. Heh.” His lips pulled into a smirk as he grabbed Yuri's wrist with one meaty hand. “This was easier than I thought.”

Yuri didn't need to see the tattoos peeking over the collar of his shirt to figure out the day he'd been dreading had finally come.

“Come on, kid. The boss wants to have a chat with you about some mutual friends. Don't—”

That was as far as he got before Yuri's instincts returned and he burst into action.

“Help!” He screamed at the top of his lungs. He kicked and scratched and punched every inch of the thug he could reach. “Rape! Fire! _Fire!_ There's a fucking fire and we're all gonna die get out _right now!”_

“Ow, what? Hey! Shut the—” Yuri's boot connected with his shin. “Fuckin—stop that!”

The thug reached back to punch Yuri in the face.

It never connected.

If Yuri lived to be 100 and did nothing but replay this moment over in his head until he died, he'd still have no idea what happened. One minute, he was about to be punched in the face, the next, there was a flapping sound like wings—or a cape—and suddenly the thug was on the ground unconscious and Yuri had been moved several feet away. Batman was standing between them, and, holy shit he was _tall_. And built.

(And, okay, Yuri's heart might have skipped a beat, because he never knew he was into capes before? All black bodysuits, yes, because black is bad ass and he dares anybody to be a skater their entire lives and not absorb a kink for skintight full body clothing through sheer osmosis. But the cape thing caught him off guard.)

“We need to leave,” Batman said.

“Whoa. Did you kill that guy?”

“ _Now_.”

Batman reached for Yuri, but he dodged out of the way. “No way. I'm not going anywhere. Who _are_ you? Where is Tim Drake? What the hell are—?”

“Do you think the Russian mafia settles its debts by sending one street thug after a secondary target?”

“What...” But even as he was forming the word, he realized what Batman meant.

_Yuuri and Victor!_

“What the fuck?!” Yuri stomped up to Batman and snarled at him. “Why the fuck are you wasting time with me then!”

“Red Hood and Red Robin are watching over your friends.”

_Red Hood and...?_

Yuri's eyes widened. “Holy shit. Is _that_ who Tim and Jason are?” _Wait, if neither of them are Batman then..._ Yuri nearly choked as he realized why Batman's voice was so familiar. “You're _Bruce Wayne?”_

Batman paused and, though Yuri couldn't be sure through the mask, he felt like he was being intently studied.

“We need to go,” was all Batman said, however.

Yuri shook himself. Right. That wasn't really important now, was it?

“Back to Katsu—to Yuuri's hotel room?”

“No. To a safehouse. All three of you are compromised. If you hadn't called Tim Drake when you did...”

Yuri swallowed heavily. “Shit...”

It wasn't like he didn't know his life was in danger, but it hadn't really sunk in until that moment. If he'd done just _one_ thing differently, he would be _dead_ right now. And so would Yuuri and Victor.

Suddenly, whether or not he got to see Yuuri naked again seemed like the least important thing in the universe.

“I need to get Potya,” Yuri said quietly. “My cat. And some clothes.”

“Already taken care of. Your cat and a week's worth of clothing are already at the safehouse.”

“What about my skating stuff?”

But even as he asked, he knew what the answer would be.

“You won't be skating until this is over.”

All of Yuri's usual protests about missing rink time died before he could even open his mouth.

_This shit is real, idiot. Keeping Yuuri and Victor safe is more important than perfecting your stupid step sequences._

“What about Yakov? And everyone at the rink?”

“They're being watched,” Batman said. “Once you, Katsuki and Nikiforov are in the safe house we'll evaluate the threat to them and decide what to do.”

“Evaluate the... _they could be getting killed right now!_ ”

“They aren't,” Batman said.

“But what if someone shows up and you're wasting time here with me?”

“Then you should get to the safehouse as soon as possible, so I'm free to help them if I need to.”

“Fuck.” Yuri took a deep breath. Then another. Then about five more really fast ones. _Shit, I think I'm about to have a panic attack._ “Fuck. Okay, let's get the fuck out of here.”

Batman nodded once, then gently grabbed Yuri's shoulder and led him out the door.

“How are we getting there?” Yuri asked. “I don't have a car, or anything...”

Batman smirked. “I've got it covered.”

 

* * *

 

“Is that a grappling hook?”

“Yes.”

_Phsssss—CLANK!_

“Wait, what are you—AHHHHH!”

 

 

* * *

 

It took them about five minutes to reach the safehouse.

“Holy shit,” Yuri said when Batman let him down on shaky legs. “That was the best thing ever!”

Yuri was still shaking with the last of his adrenaline high as Batman led him down from the roof they'd landed on into a small building on the outskirts of the city. From what little he'd seen on the outside, it looked like a condemned apartment building, but from the inside you'd never guess it was abandoned. Sure, the windows on the top floor were all boarded up, but the walls between apartments had been knocked down so the entire place was turned into one, huge penthouse. Well, if penthouses had travel cots and hospital dividers to mark off each “room”, at least. So maybe more like a bomb shelter? Either way, there were computers and medical equipment and an entire wall filled with gadgets and things that were bat shaped.

In fact, there was only one thing Yuri might have needed that he couldn't find any evidence of.

“Where's Victor and Yuuri?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short update for such a long wait, but I've actually got the next chapter mostly done so you'll get another, slightly longer one by the end of the year. Yay? Don't get used to it though. Next year the glacier slow updates will continue, but I'll also try to get this finished before 2021. I've got a lot of ideas, but almost no way to connect them, so we'll see.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. That'll teach me to make any promises about when these chapters are coming out... Pretty much as soon as I posted the last one, I started getting sick with what would end up being the worst flu I ever had. I spent the end of last year and the beginning of this one sick as fuck, and then the rest of this months catching up on everything I missed while also taking care of my parents, who had the same flu and couldn't even leave the bed to take care of each other, which was very scary. So yeah, while I might actually have a decent excuse other that laziness, I'm still embarrassed and annoyed that this is coming out almost a month after I said it would. Good news(???) though, after this, we go back to our incredibly slow update schedule! (yay?) Even better, next time we'll finally get Yuri and Damian in the same room together! Hope you enjoy the chapter.

_Forty minutes earlier..._

 

Victor Nikiforov loved Yuuri Katsuki.

This, of course, was no secret. And that was very much by Victor's design. He made sure to say it every day, in every way he knew, to as many people as possible; none more than Yuuri himself. It made every day exciting, because there were just so _many_ ways to love his Yuuri. Soft touches; sweet words; kisses stolen here and there; honest critique on his skating; teaching him a new jump or routine; taking him out for meals; running his fingers through his husbands hair and giving him a massage after a stressful day; slowly kissing his way down Yuuri's deliciously hard (or even more deliciously soft, depending on what part of the year it was) body; sinking deep into Yuuri's heat and making love until the early hours of the morning. Victor never knew how he was going to show his love until he did, which meant that Yuuri never knew either, which meant their life together was an endless series of surprises.

Victor had never been more excited to greet each new day.

But that wasn't to say everything was puppies and rainbows all the time, as appealing as that might have been. Though Victor knew Yura would vehemently protest the opposite, Victor and Yuuri _did_ have the occasional fight. And they weren't always Victor's fault either, no matter what Yakov might like to insinuate every time he catches Victor moping around the rink after an argument. Yuuri was just as capable of being pig(gy)-headed and unwilling to compromise. He was just as likely to be the one spending the night on the couch; just as likely to do something wrong and mess up in massive, nearly irreparable ways. And it was hard, so very _hard,_ when Yuuri was the one at fault, because Victor hated nothing more than seeing his Yuuri upset. Because, no matter what happened, or how good things were, there was always a part of Victor that was waiting for Yuuri to be gone. Not _leave_ , necessarily, but there were many ways one person could permanently be absent from someone's life. Victor had faith in their love. But sometimes, as Yura would say, shit happens. All Victor could do was love his life and his husband in every way he knew how, and do his best to contain the fallout of any massive mistakes either of them might make.

He would be the first to admit, however, that perhaps the fallout from his latest mistake might be a bit more than he could handle.

“Victor, if you touch me, I will chop off your _fingers_.”

Victor paused, his hand still raised from where he'd been reaching out to touch Yuuri's back. The stilted, forceful _chop-chop-chop_ of the knife Yuuri was using to cut vegetables for their (his? Would Yuuri really not feed him?) dinner in the small kitchen just off the main living area of their suite gave his threat added weight.

“Yuuri?”

_Chop-chop-chop._

“Yuuuuuri?”

_Chop-chop-chop._

“Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu—”

“What?!” Yuuri threw the knife down and spun around. “What do you want?”

“I want to apologize.”

Yuuri sighed. “Do you even know why I'm mad, Victor?”

“Ah,” Victor rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “To be honest, there's a lot to choose from over the past few days. But the worst is probably getting us on a bratva hitlist and showing Yurio your—”

“ _I know what happened_ ,” Yuuri said, waving his hands and turning beet red. After a moment, he visibly calmed himself down. “And...yes. But also...Victor, _why_ did you punch that mob guy?”

“What? Yuuri how could you ask that? He was _all over you_ and you were so uncomfortable.”

“But why did you _hit_ him?” Yuuri began to wring his hands. “This isn't the first time someone in a bar was behaving inappropriately with me.” Victor knew. _Oh_ how Victor knew. Yuuri drew people's eyes like a magnet on a daily basis, and the addition of alcohol tended to draw other body parts as well. “And you've never, no matter how handsy they've gotten, actually punched someone before. Why was _this_ time so different?”

Victor's hands clenched as he was brought back to that moment in the bar. He could almost see it playing out in front of him again; Yuuri, trapped between the bar and that _man's_ body; the man leaning into Yuuri's personal space; the way his lips brushed Yuuri's ears as he whispered what was no doubt incredibly filthy things; how he grabbed Yuuri's wrist when Yuuri no doubt very politely turned him down; the slight panic in Yuuri's voice as he tried to explain to the man that he had a husband and wasn't interested and he _still_ refused to let go; the satisfying _crunch_ as Victor's fist broke his nose.

_Why_ did he do it? God, Victor could write a novel.

But nowhere in that novel, not even in the screen adaptation that changed the plot and made the characters unrecognizable and most likely turned one of them into a woman, would what Yuuri said next ever show up.

“Is it...” Yuuri chewed his lip and looked away. “Is it because you don't trust me anymore...?”

It took Victor nearly a full minute to convince himself Yuuri had actually said what he thought he'd heard. And even then, all he could say in response was, “ _What_?”

“Do you not...trust me anymore?” Yuuri still refused to look at him. “Is that why? Did you think I wanted to go with him?”

“Yuuri...what the _hell_ are you talking about?” Yuuri flinched. Victor's heart broke. “Have...have I really been doing such a terrible job as a husband that you don't know how much I love you?”

Yuuri's head shot up, his eyes a red rimmed, watery mess. “N-no! I didn't—”

“Because if that's the case then I promise I'll do better. I'll tell you every hour—every _minute_. Yuuri, I love you more than anything in the _universe_. I trust you more than I trust myself, more than I trust Yakov to give good skating advice, more than I trust Makka to be the best doggie in the world. I would give up skating for you. I'd give up _Makka_ for you. But not to a shelter, that would be cruel. I would give him to Yurio, maybe, so I could still visit him and let him know I didn't abandon him—”

“ _Stop_!” Yuuri threw his arms around Victor's waist and buried his face in his chest. “I would never make you give up Makkachin! I love Makkachin! Stop saying that!”

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” Victor hugged him tightly. “I won't, I promise. I was just trying to make a point.”

“It was a _stupid_ point,” Yuuri sobbed into his shirt.

“No it _wasn't_ ,” Victor said forcefully. “Okay, maybe a little. But I don't know how else to get you to believe me. Yuuri, I love you more every day, and trust me when I say I have no idea how that's possible, because what I've felt for you since that banquet in Sochi has been so big and so indescribably wonderful I have no idea how a stronger feeling can even exist. But it does. And I feel it every day.”

“ _Victor...”_ Yuuri was crying hard now. “Stop. Please. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it.”

“Is that true?” Victor asked weakly. “Because if you say that's true, I'll believe you, 100%.” He took a deep breath. “But if you're just saying that because you feel bad, and you really _don't_ think I trust you and love you, then we have a serious problem that we need to work out and I'm not letting it go until we do.”

“Nono _no_!” Yuuri wailed. “I don't—! I don't know why I said that. I...I _know_ you love me. I just...I just couldn't stop _thinking_ about it. You _never_ hit people. And I've been really stressed since we found out mobsters want to kill us and I haven't been sleeping well and I was so _mad_ at you and none of that is an excuse and I'm so so _sorry_ that I ever said that. I don't think that, I promise. Not really. But you know how I get. I'm sorry you have to deal with it—”

“There's _nothing_ to 'deal with', Yuuri.” Victor started rubbing his back. “You are the best thing in my life. You _are_ my life. Everything that isn't you is what I have to 'deal with'; never _you_.”

“Vitya...” Yuuri shuddered. “I'm so _sorry_.”

“Shh. It's okay, Yuuri.” He held him tighter. “It's okay.”

They clung to each other for a while, Yuuri intermittently shuddering or sobbing in Victor's arms while Victor bit his lip to keep from filling the silence with anything that came to mind. In his long experience with Yuuri, he knew he'd eventually end up saying something in his meaningless babble that snagged on one of his husband's insecurities like a carelessly thrown fishing line. The last thing he wanted right now was to upset his Yuuri more. Or, potentially worse, start them on a whole new tangent when they still had to work through this current issue.

Eventually, Yuuri's sobs lessened, then stopped altogether, and he went nearly limp in Victor's arms. For a moment, Victor thought he might have fallen asleep; a not-unheard of outcome of one of Yuuri's more active crying binges. But his Yuuri was too stiff in his arms to be truly asleep. No, most likely the embarrassment was setting in, as if Victor would ever think less of Yuuri for crying.

Victor “I Created Two Skating Programs to Deal With the Hot Drunken Japanese Stripping Man I Fell In Love With in Sochi Then Flew Off to Japan to Coach Him on the Off Chance He Might Smile At Me Again” Nikiforov would never begrudge someone else their histrionics.

“Are you awake Yuuri?” Victor asked, generously giving his love an out if he wanted to table their discussion for another day.

Yuuri shook his head 'no'. And, while at one point Victor would have been confused at the mixed signals, he had gotten a lot better at reading his Yuuri over the years.

“Do you want me to tell you now why I hit that man?”

Yuuri tensed further, but eventually nodded.

“Okay. I hit him because, unlike all the other people who get handsy in bars—which I really hate by the way, please stop being so sexy in public Yuuri my poor heart can't take it.” Yuuri giggled wetly, and Victor's heart soared. “But unlike all those people, this man wasn't drunk, and he wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer. He was dangerous, Yuuri, and I needed to get you away from him before something happened.”

“He was dangerous...so you _punched_ him?”

“Yuuri,” Victor said. “I would punch a _bear_ if it was going to hurt you.”

Yuuri giggled again, but Victor was one hundred percent serious. He even looked up online the best place to punch a rampaging bear. (There wasn't one. The bear would just kill you, but that didn't mean he wouldn't _try_.)

“Besides,” Victor said, his voice brightening. “Punching dangerous people seems to work out for Batman and Robin.”

“You're not Batman, though.”

Victor gave Yuuri his best scandalized gasp. “Yuuri! You don't think I could be Batman?” Yuuri collapsed into a pile of giggles, so Victor decided to continue. “I could be Batman! I could fight crime and look amazing in skintight leather just like he does!”

“You already look amazing in skintight leather,” Yuuri said. “It's the crime fighting I'm not so sure about.”

“Yuuri! You wound me!”

Yuuri pulled back, smiling weakly up at Victor through red-rimmed eyes with bright, tear-stained cheeks. “Would it help if I said you've always been my super hero?”

Victor let his theatrics drain away until all that was left was a soft, genuine smile. “Is that true?”

Yuuri nodded. “Ever since I was a kid.”

Victor let his forehead fall against Yuuri's, his fringe teasing his love's cute reddened nose. “And am I still your super hero, Yuuri?”

Yuuri closed his eyes and finally, _finally_ , relaxed in Victor's arms. “Always.”

“I love you, my Yuuri.”

Yuuri smiled. “I love you too, Vitya.”

Yuuri tilted his head in that special way; basically demanding that Victor kiss him. It was the first time in days he'd gotten any sign of physical affection from Yuuri, and Victor was like a starving, drowning man being tossed into a pool of Evian with a bunch of floating tables filled with all the foods he wasn't allowed to eat during competition season, so of _course_ that was when the door to their hotel room was kicked open and three burly men in suits came in, guns drawn.

“There you are,” the biggest one said, though that descriptor was somewhat redundant. They were _all_ very big men. To the point where a much younger Victor would have been somewhat flustered, even without the guns. “The boss has been looking for you.”

Yuuri screamed, and Victor immediately placed himself in front of his love. He doubted any of them would get close enough to punch—why have the guns if they were just going to fight?—but he raised his fists anyway and prepared to defend his Yuuri.

The men laughed at him.

Which, really. _Rude_.

_Well, laughing or not, it's still up to me to protect Yuuri. If I channel the toughest person I know, maybe I can scare them a bit._

“If you don't leave right now, I'm going to cut your throat with my skates.”

They laughed harder.

_Damn. I should have said “fuck” somewhere in there. That always works for Yura._

Victor was psyching himself up for another try when suddenly the window behind him exploded inward. Now it was Victor's turn to shriek as two men came swinging in through the new hole and landed in a crouch. For a minute, he thought he was going to have to defend Yuuri from _two_ groups of attackers— _I'm going to have to say a lot of fucks—_ but then he realized he recognized these new people.

“Batman and Robin!”

_They actually came!_

“Are you still on that?” Robin asked even as he drew his own guns in one fluid motion and pointed them at the mob men. “Do I look like Batman?”

“They think you're Robin, remember?” Batman (though Victor was starting to doubt the accuracy of their identities) said.

“Even worse. I literally could not look less like the Demon Brat if I tried.”

“A fact I'm thankful for everyday, sweetie.”

“Aw, shucks, Red, not in front of the Russian mob.”

Batman(?) smirked and drew a short stick that very quickly expanded into a larger stick when he shook it.

The mob men all raised their guns, this time pointing them at Batman(?) and Robin(??).

“Who the hell are you supposed to be?” one of them asked.

“Whoever they are,” another said darkly, “they sealed their fate by interfering in bratva business.”

“You know,” Robin(??) said. “That might have been a little scary if you hadn't pissed yourself first.”

The second mobster flushed and glanced down. His pants were dry.

“Oh my God, he actually looked,” Robin(??) said. “I love Russia.”

“Hood,” Batman(?) said tersely. “Can we maybe protect the internationally renowned figure skaters standing between us and three Russian mobsters holding guns before we antagonize them?”

Robin (Hood? Robin...Hood?) sighed. “If you _insist_.”

It happened fast after that. As soon as the words were out of his mouth they were moving, somehow managing to engage the mobsters and shove Victor and Yuuri out of the path of the fighting at the same time. Victor saw it all in still frame flashes. Robin Hood(?) shooting a mobster in the chest. Batman(?) ducking a shot from the mobster who thought he wet himself. Robin Hood(?) punching the third mobster in the throat. Batman(?) smashing his stick on the head of his mobster after leaping in the air. Robin Hood(?) cracking the now-choking mobster on the back of his head with one of his guns as he struggled to breathe.

It was over in seconds that seemed to last a small eternity. And just like that, Victor and Yuuri were safe.

“Wow,” Victor said into the sudden still silence. “That was amazing!”

“Victor...” Yuuri said weakly. Victor, however, was too excited to notice the weary, shaky edge to his voice.

“That was even more impressive than when you saved us in that alley! You were all _chop_ and _kick_ and _bang!_ and now we're safe.” _That worked out so much better than Yura with his skates. Maybe we should get him one of those expanding stick things? I think Yakov might lose the rest of his hair if I got Yura a gun. ...come to think of it, that might make me lose more of mine too. Better stick with the stick._ Victor tilted his head as he studied the two unconscious mobsters. “Are you going to kill them too? So they don't report back to their hideout?”

“Please don't.” Yuuri said. He began to shake in Victor's arms.

“I like the way you think,” Robin Hood(?) said.

“We're not killing anyone,” Batman(?) said with the world-weary tone of a parent who was telling their child for the 3000th time to stop sitting so close to the TV. “We _don't_ kill people,” he said, this time to Victor. “Hood uses rubber bullets.”

“Oh.” Victor said. “ _Oh!_ So, you didn't kill those men in the alley either?”

“Of course not!” Batman(?) said. “We reported them to the police and they were picked up after you left. Did you really think we killed them?”

Victor nodded.

“Oh.” Batman(?) frowned. “Well, we didn't.”

“Oh, thank God,” Yuuri said, collapsing a bit into Victor's arms.

“Yay, we're not murderers,” Robin Hood(?) said, deadpan. “Now come on, we need to get you packed up and out of here before Boris and Natasha send in anymore goons.”

Victor and Yuuri shared a confused look. “Who?”

Robin Hood groaned. “How can you not...Rocky and Bullwinkle? Boris and Natasha? Moose and squirrel?”

“Are those code words? Victor asked hesitantly. “Because I don't know very many secret codes. Actually, I don't think I know any. Do you know any secret codes Yuuri?”

“I hope not.”

“Ugh.” Robin Hood(?) threw up his hands. “No one ever gets my references.”

“Welcome to my world,” Batman(?) said solemnly. “But really, we need to get out of here.”

Victor shrugged. He could figure out the code later. “Okay. Where are we going?”

“Someplace safe.”

 

* * *

 

Someplace safe ended up being a very subjective term.

“You assholes! Who the fuck told you you could get attacked by mobsters!?”

Victor and Yuuri just barely managed to duck the shoe Yura threw at them.

“Yurio!” Yuuri ran forward and pulled the younger man into a crushing hug. “You're okay!”

Yura blushed and went rigid in his arms. Victor pretended not to notice. He'd gotten very good at that over the years.

“O-of course I'm okay,” Yura said. “Idiot. You're the ones who almost got killed.”

He allowed Yuuri to hug him for a few more seconds before violently pushing him away. Victor internally rolled his eyes. One of these days Yura was going to learn to deal with his feelings in a healthy way.

Maybe.

“We're fine,” Yuuri said. “It was scary, but...”

For the first time since they all met in that smelly Gotham alley, Yuuri looked at Robin Hood(?) and Batman(?) and smiled. “They took care of everything.”

Yura turned towards the heroes. “Did you kill them?”

Batman(?) sighed. “You too?”

“What the hell does that mean?” Yura scowled and took a step towards him. “Did you _kill them_? Blow them up? Shoot them in the head? Chop them up into pieces and stick them in the walls? Set them on fire?”

Yura looked...very eager for an answer.

Everyone stared at him.

_Okay. Nevermind. Definitely not getting Yura any weapons._

Robin Hood(?) tilted his head. “Is this normal?”

“No!” Yuuri said, shaking his head and waving his hands.

“Eh,” Victor said, giving one of his a 'so-so' waggle.

“What the fuck does _that_ mean?” Yura demanded, hands on his hips.

Robin Hood(?) laughed. “Oh, this is great. I can't wait till you meet Damian.”

“Shut up, Jason,” Batman(?) hissed.

“Yes,” came a deep voice from somewhere deep inside the warehouse they were in. “Please do.”

Victor and Yuuri were the only ones who flinched at the new voice, and when a dark, forbidding shape materialized from the shadows Victor wasn't even embarrassed at his reaction. No, it was definitely okay to be scared by something that looked like...well. It looked like a giant—

“Oh!” Victor exclaimed. “ _You're_ Batman! Aren't you?”

Batman(the real one this time, Victor was sure) turned his blank, white eyes towards him. “Yes.”

_Okay. That's very creepy._

Yuuri was beginning to shake, though, so Victor pushed his own uneasiness aside and flashed Batman a bright grin. “Amazing! This makes so much more sense. I knew Batman had to be super buff!”

“Hey!” Tiny Not-Batman exclaimed. “I'm not _that_ —”

“Shh babybird,” Robin Hood(?) said. “Don't worry, you're thick where it counts.”

He smacked Tiny Not-Batman on his ass.

Tiny Not-Batman squeaked.

Victor studied the area of attack.

“Yuuri's thicker,” he proclaimed a moment later.

“Victor!” Yuuri flushed bright red.

“Oh my God, shut the fuck up about asses!” Yura yelled.

He was also red, but Victor assumed it was for a very different reason.

_Oh, Yura..._

A short argument ensued, mostly about who brought up asses and whose fault the conversation was, and not about whose ass was better (which was a shame, because Victor could scientifically prove that Yuuri's ass was best ass) but it was quickly stopped by Batman with a single command and a stern glare.

Victor was very impressed.

“All right, look,” Yura said after everyone had quieted. “Just so we can get this shit out of the way. That's Batman. That's Red Hood. And that's Red Robin. They're gonna be our bodyguards.”

“Oh,” Victor said. He frowned at Red Hood. “Are you sure you're not Robin Hood?”

Red Robin burst out laughing.

“Oh fuck off, I'd be an awesome Robin Hood.”

Red Robin laughed harder.

“But,” Red Hood said, drawing the word out with a slightly lewd, teasing edge that Victor recognized from years of knowing Chris, “if we're gonna do fairy tale names babybird, you should be Little Red Riding Hood.”

Red Robin suddenly choked on his laughter.

Victor's lips twitched. He could feel Yuuri slowly calming beside him, finally, so he decided to keep everyone's attention away from him for a while longer. “Oh! I get it!” He grinned brightly. “It's because you two are—”

“We have a problem.”

Batman's solemn words cut through their mirth like a pair of perfectly sharpened skates. His face was grim (well, grimm _er_ , anyway, and Victor was surprised he could tell the difference) and he had two fingers pressed to the side of his cowl, like he was listening to someone through a Bluetooth headset or some kind of ear piece, maybe like the kind the secret police Yakov sometimes talks about when he gets really drunk used to wear.

“What happened, Batman?” Red Robin asked.

“The St Petersburg Ice Arena was just burned down.”

“ _What_?!” Yura exploded. He took a furious step forward, his fists clenched at his side. “What the fuck? How did that—”

“Was anybody inside?” Victor asked.

Yuuri stiffened at his side, and even Yura paled at Victor's question.

“As far as Oracle can tell from the security footage, no. It was empty.”

“But you don't know for sure?”

Batman pressed his lips together. “Not yet.”

“I'm on it,” Red Robin said. The moment the words were out of his mouth he was already gone, out the nearest window and off into the night.

Yuri said something after he left, and Victor thought maybe Batman responded, but he couldn't make out any of their words over the sudden rushing in his ears. He'd spent almost his entire career training at the Ice Arena, ever since he was discovered by Yakov. It, and the people who trained there, were more a home and family to Victor than the place he was born and the people who raised him. And now it was gone. All because of him.

_My god, what if it wasn't empty?_

It should be. It was late and Yakov never let anyone stay past when he left except for Victor and, more recently, Yuuri. The Arena should have been locked up tight, but Victor knew all the secret—and not so secret—ways to get around the old Soviet era locks and doors. It wasn't hard to break in if you were determined enough. His Yuuri often sneaked out late at night when he couldn't sleep and skated for hours. He'd even mentioned to Victor that sometimes one or two of the younger skaters in Yakov's stable would be there as well. They would pester him, beg him to show them this spin or that step sequence the way they used to beg Victor to show them his best jumps. Even now, after so many gold medals and world records and perfectly executed routines, Yuuri couldn't understand why anybody would want to learn anything from him. If any of those kids were there tonight...

“Victor,” Yuuri said urgently. “What if—”

“I know, love.”

He pulled Yuuri in close, wrapped him up in his arms and held him tightly. It was partially to comfort Yuuri, and to take comfort from him, but it was also partially to keep Yuuri from saying out loud what Victor feared. The superstitious part of him couldn't let it be said out loud, lest the words themselves make it true.

Yura was spitting and swearing and kicking everything he could reach, but when he came close and Victor pulled him into his arms as well he didn't even put up a token resistance. He buried his face in between Yuuri and Victor and...

_Oh, is that wetness on my shirt? Yura, are you crying?_

Victor suddenly had no idea what to do. He'd seen Yura in tears before, but they had always been tears of frustrated rage. Tears of grief...even during the most trying times in his life, Yura had always managed to keep those tears behind closed doors. Yura was really worried about everybody.

Or was it because the Ice Arena burned down? Victor knew Yura thought of it as his home, second only to his grandfather's apartment. Perhaps both?

Whatever it was, Victor was at a loss for how to deal with it.

He was drawn out of his thoughts by a loud _thump_ as Red Hood dropped down onto the nearby travel cot.

“So, Yuri,” he said casually. “How the _hell_ did you ever find out who we were anyway?”

“I...didn't?” Yuuri said, his voice muffled by his clogged nose and Victor's shoulder.

“Not you,” Red Hood said. “Other Yuri.” He tilted his head. “Does that ever get confusing? Do you guys have different ways of saying your name, or something? Or does someone shout 'Yuri!' and you both come running every time?”

“I—” Yuuri began.

“People call me Yurio.”

Victor blinked in astonishment. And, okay, so maybe Victor wasn't as stupid as he sometimes pretended to be, and Yura wasn't as hard to read as _he_ liked to think he was, and Victor had known for a while that he kind of liked being called Yurio, for all his protesting. But Yura had _never_ volunteered the name willingly.

_This is a night of firsts. And I have no idea if that's a good thing or not._

Yura sniffed and wiped his eyes before pushing away from their hug and facing Red Hood. Even though he was now facing away, Victor could almost see the glare through the back of his head just daring the super hero to comment on his red eyes and splotchy cheeks. “And I figured you out from a fucking YouTube video.”

“Bull _shit_.”

“Oh yeah?” Yura took an angry step forward. “You wanna know how easy it was to find out your secret identity?”

“I'd _love_ to.”

And with that, Yura began angrily explaining exactly how he'd figured out the identities of Batman and Robin. (Well, sort of.) Red Hood wasn't the only one interested either. Batman was very clearly listening intently, and even Victor was paying attention. He'd never really asked Yura how he'd done it; at the time, he had been too busy worrying about the mob and terrified that he was destroying his relationship with Yuuri. In hindsight, that fear was probably responsible for at least half of his stupid decisions over the past few weeks.

_I can't believe I showed Yuuri's penis to Yura, especially with Yura's obvious and utterly adorable crush on Yuuri. Actually, I can't believe neither of them killed me for it..._

By the time Yura was done, Victor wasn't the only one staring at him in awe.

“Jesus Christ,” Red Hood said, shaking his head. “I can't believe you got all that from two names and a goddamn TED Talk babybird gave on about sixteen minutes of sleep that week.” He laughed. “I guess that'll teach me to open my fucking mouth on patrol.”

Batman made a small noise that Victor couldn't quite identify, but got him a middle finger from Red Hood.

“Don't even start, asshole. You're the one who didn't have Babs scrub any articles mentioning Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd after I came back. It's your fault too.”

Batman pointedly turned his back and began fiddling with something on his costume.

Red Hood snorted. “That's what I thought.”

“Who's Babs?” Yura asked.

“Huh?” Red Hood, reluctantly it seemed, turned his attention away from Batman. “Oh. I probably shouldn't... Ah, fuck it. She's Oracle.”

“ _What_?” Yura went rigid. “You know who _Oracle_ is?”

Red Hood took a cautious step back. “Uh...yes?”

“And her name is _Babs_? Like the pink bunny from that stupid American cartoon?”

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Red Hood said, his voice laced with something that sounded like glee. “ _Please_ say that to her face if you guys ever meet. I'm begging you.”

“Damn right I will! And I'll meet her, too. I need to get her back for hacking my phone and ruining my contacts list!”

“Holy fuck, this keeps getting better,” Red Hood said softly. Then, louder, “Hey, Yuri, tell me more about how she messed with your phone. That's fucked up, right?”

As Yura continued to rant about Oracle (whoever that is) and Red Hood continued to goad him, Victor felt a small smile tugging at his lips. This was the Yura Victor knew and loved. And even if it was a front, which it probably was at least to some degree, the fact that he could even put it up was already an improvement. Victor was grateful that Red Hood was here to snap Yura out of his despair and worry when Victor himself couldn't. A moment later, his smile began to slip into a frown when he realized they'd probably never see any of these heroes after tonight. The idea of never seeing them again made him sad. It was so rare for Yura to connect with anyone, and even though the situation was beyond terrible, Yura had made some kind of connection with Red Hood and, to a lesser extent, maybe, Red Robin; from back during their first meeting in that alleyway when they attacked those men who tried to rob Yura, Yuuri, and Victor most likely. Little Yura never would have wasted his time trying to figure out their identities if he didn't feel something drawing him to them. And if there was one thing Yura could use in his life, it was more friends.

Red Hood was in the middle of trying to get Yura to explain, in detail, everything he was going to say to this Oracle person, when Batman pressed his finger against the side of his cowl and growled, “I'm here. Report.”

Everyone fell silent. Yuuri began to shiver in Victor's arms, and Victor, who had never been particularly religious, began to pray that everyone was all right.

“Understood,” Batman said a minute later. “Batman out.”

Victor held his breath, but thankfully Batman wasted no time in telling them what he'd heard.

“As far as we can tell, there was no one inside the Ice Arena when it was set on fire.”

Yuuri began to sob in relief, and even Victor, who was so determined to keep it together for his husband, nearly collapsed.

_Oh, thank God._

Yura, however, was scowling. “What the hell do you mean 'as far as we can tell'?”

Before Victor or Yuuri could do more than tense, Batman said, “We don't have the same relationship with Russian law enforcement that we do with the Gotham police, so our investigation options are limited. Red Robin was able to sneak into the rink once the fires were out, and he watched as the rescue crews dug through the remains of the building. No bodies were found, and a check of the houses or apartments of everyone who would have had after hours access to the building showed them all safe at home. There still could have been someone inside, one of the arsonists who got careless, or a homeless person seeking a warm place to sleep, that won't be discovered until they begin cleaning up the debris, but I'm confident that none of your friends were inside when it happened.”

He paused and studied Yura for a long moment.

“If it would make you feel better, I could let you borrow a backup comm unit and have Oracle put you in contact with anybody you might be worried about.”

“Why the hell didn't you just do that in the first place!?” Yura demanded.

“Because it's late,” Red Hood said, cutting in. “If you tried to call someone and they didn't wake up and answer the phone, it just would have made you freak out.”

Yura crossed his arms, but Victor could almost see his phantom hackles going back down. “I don't freak out,” Yura muttered.

Victor did a good job of not reacting to that _,_ but he felt Yuuri twitch in his arms.

Afterwards, things began to move quickly. Yura, to the surprise of no one, made Oracle contact Yakov and every single one of their rinkmates. Judging by the half of the conversation Victor could actually hear, none of them were very pleased about being bothered so late, until Yura mentioned the rink being burned down. It was a bit of a mess for a while, with Yura uncharacteristically—and, in any other situation, hilariously—being the one who had to try and calm everybody down. After three different calls that all turned out the same way, Yura had his reassurances that everyone was safe down to a T. It was slightly impressive to watch, and it reminded Victor once again that Yura was at his best when pushed outside his comfort zone. Ideas for programs he could choreograph for the young skater began to float through his mind, themes and expressions that would push him even further than Agape had, with the added benefit of actually being created for Yura, instead of thrown together in a manic month of heartbreak and frustration for Victor to bleed his emotions out all over the ice.

Victor had half a short program tentatively sketched out in his mind when Yuuri, as always, brought him crashing down to reality.

“Victor,” he said, his voice still muffled by Victor's shoulder. “Where are we going to train for next season?”

Victor tensed.

_Oh. That's right. We don't have an arena anymore, do we?_

Muffled or not, Victor wasn't the only one who heard Yuuri's question.

“Fuck,” said Yura. He was done with his calls, and was now staring at Victor in horror, his face noticeably paler than usual, which was quite the accomplishment. “Where the fuck _are_ we gonna train?!”

“What do you mean?” Red Hood asked. “There are probably a lot of rinks you can use for a season or two or however the fuck long it takes to get yours rebuilt, right?”

“Not in St Petersburg,” Victor said. “The Ice Arena was the biggest, and most of the other rinks are outdoor rinks that cater to the public. The rest are much too small for all of us to train at the same time.”

Which would mean they would either have to have shorter days, or Yakov would need to split his time between rinks. Neither of which were good options. Victor could probably coach Yuuri again, and choreograph routines for the both of them, and Yura as well, but even he couldn't compete and coach more than one skater at a time. No matter what, someone's season was going to suffer; several someones, most likely.

Not to mention the other glaring problem with trying to book a second rink in Russia after what happened tonight.

“What about other cities?” Red Hood asked. He was beginning to sound as worried as Victor felt, and it was only then he remembered that the scary, helmeted man was a fan. “You could go to, I dunno, Moscow or something, right?”

“Well, maybe, but—”

“The mob would kill us before we even booked our first hour of rinktime,” Yura said.

“Also,” Victor said, “I don't think there will be many rinks in Russia who are going to be willing to have us after they learn _why_ the Ice Arena was burned down.”

Everyone stilled as Victor's words sank in.

“Maybe...” Yuuri swallowed heavily. “Maybe it would be best if we skipped this season...”

If those words were as hard to say it they sounded, they were even harder to hear. Evidence? Three loud voices simultaneously shouting “No!” at the top of their lungs. Red Hood might have been the loudest.

Yuuri flinched, but then quickly steeled his spine and stepped out of Victor's arms. “It's not worth any of us getting hurt.”

“Then what the fuck are we going to do all year?” Yura shouted. “Hide out in this shitty safe house?”

Yuuri licked his lips. “We could...we could go to Hasetsu. My parents would love to have us at the onsen...”

As lovely as that sounded, Victor was already shaking his head. “Yuuri,” he said softly. “I don't think that's such a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Victor grimaced. He really didn't want to have to say this out loud; he knew it was going to set off Yuuri's anxiety something fierce, but it couldn't go unsaid, either.

“What if the mafia followed us?”

Every bit of color drained from Yuuri's face.

“So, what?” Yura said, his voice shaking slightly. “No matter what we do they're just gonna chase us down and kill us anyway?”

“I didn't say that,” Victor said quickly, shooting Yuuri a worried glance. “I only said it was a possibility.”

“What if they're already there?” Yuuri asked, wide eyed. “Victor, they burned down the rink, what if they went after the onsen too? What if my parents and Mari—”

“No, love. Don't even think it. I'm sure they're fine.”

“But what if they aren't?!”

Years of Yuuri experience told Victor his husband was seconds away from a full blown panic attack. Thankfully, he had some idea of how to head this one off.

“Why don't you call them?”

“I don't have my phone!

Victor turned to Batman. “Can Yuuri have one of those ear piece things as well? He needs to make sure his family is okay.”

Batman pulled another comm thing out of his belt and passed it to Victor, who gave it to Yuuri.

“Oracle will patch you through.”

Yuuri immediately put it into his ear. Moments later, he began speaking in rapid, panicked Japanese that slowly became more calm as Victor listened.

“They're okay,” Yuuri said when he was done with his conversation. “No one weird has come around the onsen or in town either, and after Mari had that stalker last year everyone's been keeping an eye out for suspicious strangers. I think...I think they'll be okay, for now...”

“That's good, love. I'm glad everybody is okay.”

“But, Victor, what if something happens?”

“It's unlikely,” Batman said suddenly. Yuuri jumped at his voice.

“W-why do you say that?” Yuuri asked.

“The Russian mafia has a very thin presence in Japan, and they tend to be hostile towards their mainland counterparts. It would be more trouble than it's worth.”

“But how can you be _sure_?”

“I can't.” Yuuri began to wring is hands in agitation. “But I have someone in the area who can watch over them.”

“Someone like you?”

“Someone I trust to do whatever it takes to protect people.”

Yuuri closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “ _Thank_ you.”

Victor kissed the top of his head.

“Now that that's solved,” Yura said, his voice surprisingly gentle, “what's going to happen next season? You can't seriously expect us all to live _here_.”

“We...might actually have to sit next season out,” Victor said.

He hated saying it, even if he usually loved agreeing with Yuuri, but he couldn't see any other option. It hurt, though. Skating had been his life for so long, and while he'd already held on long past the point when most skaters would retire and somehow managed to keep nearly all of his skills in tip top shape, every year was a race against time and his slowly aging body. Being forced to sit out what might end up being his last season weighed heavily on Victor's heart, but there was no way he would risk any of their lives for figure skating. None at all.

“Yura—“

“Fuck _that_.”

To Victor's surprise, that outburst didn't come from Yura.

It came from Red Hood.

“B.”

“No.”

“ _B_.”

“ _No_.”

“Come on, B. You know they're right. If the mob's willing to go this far there's no way we can't guarantee they won't chase them down. It's the only choice we have. Unless you want me to go out and kill them all. I will, too, just say the word and they're _done_.”

The glare Batman sent him turned _Victor's_ insides to ice.

“You, more than anyone, know how big a presence the Russian mafia has there.”

“Exactly!” Somehow, Victor knew Red Hood was smirking. “It's a _different mob_. If the mob that's after our boys shows up they'll be too busy fighting each other to bother offing a couple of skaters.”

“So you want to invite a _gang war—_ ”

“Do you _really_ think they'll be stupid enough to show up? Petr Zharkov might let his kid put a hit out on some guy who punched him in the face in a bar, but he's not gonna let little Vasiliy run off to America and start a war with another mob, especially one that still has a big presence in Russia. Face it, B, it's probably the safest place in the world for them.”

Batman said nothing.

Victor looked back and forth between the masked men, but he had no idea who was winning the argument, or really what they were arguing about.

“What the fuck are you two talking about?”

Apparently, neither did Yura.

“B?” Red Hood prompted.

After a long moment, Batman pinched the bridge of his nose and relented.

“I may have a solution to your training problem.”

 

* * *

 

> **BRUCE WAYNE BUYS RUSSIAN SKATING TEAM?**
> 
>  
> 
> In a move that was considered shocking by everybody except long term residents of Gotham, billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne has seemingly purchased an entire team of Russian figure skaters. The news broke early this morning when Wayne Enterprises release the following statement:
> 
> _Wayne Enterprises is excited to announce that Yakov Feltsman and his entire stable of world class figure skaters have decided to move their home rink to the Gotham Palace of Ice for the 20XX-20XX figure skating season. Feltsman's skaters, including five time consecutive Grand Prix Final gold medalist, multiple time world champion, and Olympic gold and silver medalist Victor Nikiforov, Grand Prix and world champion, and Olympic gold medalist Katsuki Yuuri, and Olympic bronze medalist and Grand Prix gold medalist Yuri Plisetsky, will make a welcome addition to Gotham City's long history of athletic excellence. We are also pleased to announce that Bruce Wayne himself has offered to fully pay for the repairs to Feltsman's previous home rink, which was unfortunately burned down several weeks ago. We hope that the residents of Gotham will join Bruce Wayne, Wayne Enterprises, and all of its subsidiaries in welcoming Coach Feltsman and his world class athletes to our fair city, and wishing them good luck in the upcoming season._
> 
> Almost as soon as this statement was released rumors began to circulate that Mr Wayne had, in fact, purchased Yakov Feltsman's entire skating team outright, for reason that are currently unknown. While it is true that Feltsman's original home rink, the St Petersburg Ice Arena located in St Petersburg Russia, was burned to the ground just over a week ago, there has been speculation that this event was anything but an accident, and that the fire is currently being investigated as an arson by Russian authorities despite statements to the contrary. As of yet, Mr Wayne has been unavailable for comment, but sources close to the Wayne family have revealed that Bruce Wayne's reclusive youngest and only known biological son, Damian, is an avid fan of figure skating and of Yuri Plisetsky in particular. Is it possible that Bruce Wayne bought his son his very own skating team, along with his favorite skater? That is, at the time, currently unknown. However, is it worth noting that, despite being based in America for the upcoming season, all of Feltsman's skaters will still be competing for Russia according to a statement released by the Russian Skating Federation.
> 
> Considering that this move will bring little benefit to Gotham and no benefit whatsoever to the wider United States skating scene, this reporter has to wonder what the point is. A billionaire's show of excess? Yet another Bruce Wayne vanity project? A late birthday present for his son? As of press time, the answer to this question is unknown.
> 
> More on this story as it develops.


End file.
